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What can we expect now that the owner of more than 50 years has sold 1349 Abbot Kinney? Beverly Hills investor group led by Michael Shabani has purchased the building which houses our iconic Hal’s, Euphoria, Just Tantau, Minnie T’s and Casa Linda.

Has Abbot Kinney peaked? The rumor mill is working over time spinning the next episode of who is joining the street and who is being pushed out. Are we going the way of Santa Monica’s Main Street and Montana Avenue? Are we irrelevant–no longer the ‘coolest block in America?’ Is that what we have become with a mattress store opening on the Street and replacing our unique Altered Space?

The corporate invasion of the Street has been massive. Long-term landlords are choosing chain store tenants even when quality individual shops are looking to establish roots on our street. Long-term tenants who made the Street what it has become have been pushed out because of rent increases that only the corporate world can afford. These new owners are looking for “the address.”

Abbot Kinney Blvd. is “the address” or should we say was “the address?”

Before long these big-rent corporate shops will be screaming for a huge parking structure like they have at the Grove and in Beverly Hills. What other mall fixtures will they be demanding? Valet attendants in front of every store?

We throw out the words ‘one-of-a-kind’ this and that but we actually were that ‘one-of-a-kind’ and we felt it and we lived it – readers, get ready to kiss it goodbye. We are becoming one of them.